


the distance from here to where you'd be

by lycheeloving



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Long-Distance Relationship, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-06
Updated: 2020-09-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:54:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25749952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lycheeloving/pseuds/lycheeloving
Summary: How do you stay connected when letters take too long? Hubert proposes a solution.
Relationships: Bernadetta von Varley/Hubert von Vestra
Comments: 14
Kudos: 37





	1. Chapter 1

Hubert wasn't the type to give gifts. Bernie knew and was more than fine with this. She herself tended to make and give enough little things for the both of them combined, so the novelty of his gifts suited her just fine. It also made every gift that he _did_ give her even more special: from the custom-made sewing box she kept at their bedside, to the very special, very closed-off section of the garden that she now grew several dangerous plants in, to the clumsily-but-lovingly-made woven bracelet that she wore everywhere now. 

All of those were her special birthday gifts, of course. The little, daily gifts were even rarer - he was much more likely to brew her a cup of tea, or cook a meal when it was her turn to make dinner, or have her horsetack cleaned and polished for her before she left on one of her trips. 

Which was why she was so caught offguard when, on one non-descript day in the summer, he presented her with a neatly wrapped parcel tied up with a simple black bow. 

She rearranged herself on the sofa she nearly fell out of in her surprise (she'd been lying across it in a truly unladylike manner.) "Wh-what's this for?" She managed to sit up, gathering her skirt to one side and scooting over to give him space.

But Hubert remained standing, and he had an odd expression on. She might've called that face a grimace, once, but she now knew was just him being sheepish and embarrassed. "Open it, and you'll see."

She bit her lip in an effort to contain her grin as she reached out to take it from his outstretched hand. What could it be? It was of an average-ish size... maybe a new travel kit for her brushes and pens? A new shrug to wear for the road, since her old one was starting to wear... No, she thought as she weighed it in her hands, it felt more solid. She was as careful as she could manage about the wrapping, which wasn't much at all, and soon she was lifting the lid to reveal... "A book?" 

"A journal," he corrected, and she nodded. There was no title on the cover, and even that was relatively plain other than the fine, dark leather it was crafted from (so sturdy!), and the tiny silver stitching down the sides. She opened it to find plain, blank pages inside.

"For your travels," he continued, as she inspected it, running her hands over the pages and noting the paper's quality. He barreled on, seeming to find more words as he spoke, keeping her from thanking him properly. "When you leave next week, I hope- rather, I would _like_ for you to take this with you, please." 

She always made sure to bring enough blank sketchbooks with her, though. In fact, he would personally order those for her in advance. So why...

"I have one as well," he said abruptly, bringing one out from behind his back, like a magician putting on a show for the first time. It was perfectly identical, right down to the rune-like stitching on the cover.

And suddenly he was sitting next to her, his journal open on his lap, and procuring one of her own sharpened graphite pencils from somewhere on his person. Bernie was getting more bewildered by the second; she so rarely saw him this animated - it was the closest he got to excited. 

"Look," he instructed firmly, as he took the pen down to the upper corner of the first, blank page. In his small, careful penmanship he wrote today's date... and to Bernie's surprise, the journal in her lap seemed to tremble the slightest bit. 

She stared down at it in surprise - nothing about it seemed to have changed at all - but Hubert was reaching over and turning the pages back to the first one. 

"... Oh!" 

The same date was written at the same corner, in Hubert's unmistakable hand. She looked up at him again, hands clasped to her mouth in glee. "That's- how did you-..."

"Several very clever spells," he said, lips curved up in a tiny, satisfied grin. "It works better with ink, but I know you prefer your graphite. Charcoal smudges, of course, and unfortunately to illegibility." He held her pencil out to her.

"Still!" Bernie exclaimed, taking the pencil and trying it out for herself. She added the year to the date, and a quick, loopy little carnation at the end. Just a scribble of a thing, really, since she rushed to turn back to his journal - and watched the carnation bloom in the same order of strokes, just a heartbeat after she lifted the tip from her page. She giggled in delight. "This is amazing! Hubert!" She beamed up at him, quickly recalling everything else he'd said previously, that he wanted her to bring it along on her trip. 

"Does this mean I can write you letters in... right away?" No more waiting until she found a caravan traveling the right way to send him her letters that took weeks to reach him? No more hunting down his sneaky spy outposts at unlikely towns a day away from the big cities, trading passwords to convince them of her identity so she could have them deliver her letters for her?

"You can still write letters," he said, sliding a hand down the edges of the pages. "There are only so many pages of this, after all. And I have yet to see how much distance the magic will withstand." 

Oh. Bernie pouted, though it was shortlived. She was still too excited. "Well, I can test that for you, no problem! This is probably gonna be really useful for sending urgent news right away, huh?" She supposed that her upcoming trip was going to be helpful in testing that for him. She'd gotten quite good at weaving the right code into her letters to him when she needed to, but this journal could make that easier for her. 

He nodded, one hand curled to his chin in thought. "Of course, perhaps eventually. The spells required are not unsubstantial, however, and the material must be of particular quality for the magic to even take..." he muttered something else about who he could possibly entrust such a valuable tool to, but she didn't really catch it. She nodded in understanding anyway.

Hubert glanced back at her, and she couldn't quite place the look in his eyes. When he spoke again, he did so almost haltingly. 

"This... is for you, Bernadetta," he reached out and she thought he was just going for the book, but his fingers landed over hers to clasp them over the journal firmly. "So that you may still reach me from wherever your travels will take you... and that I may do the same." 

Tears lept to her eyes the same time that a watery laugh rose out of her chest. The journals fell to the side as she flung her arms up and over his shoulders in a fierce hug, a flurry of thank you's tumbling out of her lips.


	2. Chapter 2

The Message Journal was surely special, Bernadetta thought, leafing through the blank pages idly before paging back to the first page. She was in a cramped, private cabin on a ship bound for Brigid, and was using the last of the sunlight streaming from a small porthole to start writing her first messages to Hubert, miles away by now, in Enbarr where she left him. She'd have written sooner, but they'd agreed to wait a few hours to let her settle down and for him to get some work done before they would try it out.

Now she was sitting on the tiny bed in her cabin, leaning against the wall and using one of her travel bags as a makeshift table. Graphite pencil in hand, she wondered what she could write. This moment felt almost historic, or it should be! It was the first attempt at this new, exciting form of correspondence. She couldn't just write anything...

 _Good evening!_ She finally wrote, too excited to think of something properly momentous. _I miss you already._

Was he busy now, though? He would be staying in the palace for a few days before heading back to Varley. Maybe Lady Edelgard had given him some extra work, and he couldn't check the journal for some time... 

Her journal gave a tiny tremble, and Bernie bent over the page eagerly. 

_Good evening. I miss you, too._ She was about to add something else when he continued. _But that is what this journal is for._

It was only two, three lines from either of them, but she hadn't stopped grinning since they had appeared. Magic had never been her strong suit, nor her interest, and it had mostly just been... around, sometimes. She'd seen more of it than she cared to during the war, of course, but even then she never gave it much more thought than she had to. But with this, she was utterly, well, spellbound. 

She couldn't stop thinking about how limited they were by the number of pages though. Hubert had said that he had to consider paper quality over page count when choosing what sort of journals to cast the spells on, so they were stuck with only fifty pages. 

Still, Hubert had reassured her, on that afternoon he'd given her the journals, that he would gladly read anything and everything she wanted to write to him. Once they start to run out of journal space, he said, he would simply prepare new ones for next time. 

She knew it was more than just a "simple" task, if the rare excitement he'd shown over the journals was any indication. So Bernie knew she had to make every word count. The last thing she wanted to do was to waste space on spelling errors done in a hurry, or rewriting something that he couldn't understand. He'd simply nodded in agreement whe she said they should probably still be careful when thinking about what to write.

 _I'm nearly out of sunlight here,_ She wrote next. _but the captain said that we have clear skies tonight, so I should be able to write by the moon and candlelight._ Didn't that sound romantic? She smiled to herself in satisfaction, then added a little moon for good measure. 

_That's god to hear. Clear skies mean a smoother trip._ He paused again, and Bernie tapped her fingers on the paper impatiently. _But it is no easy feat to write on a rocking ship by dying light. Please do not strain your eyes on my account._

She frowned at those last words; did he want to finish talking when they'd just barely begun? She took advantage of his apparent tendency to pause between sentences to scribble in her own quick reply. 

_My eyes are just fine, thank you! I'm not Deadeye Bernie for nothing!_

The pause that followed was lengthy enough for Bernie to wonder if she'd made him mad somehow, or maybe surprise him. She was only kidding! If he could only see her pout... 

Ahh, this was the hard part, then, not being able to see him, or hear him. Hubert was a stoic man, but she'd learned how to read him over the years, and now, having a conversation of sorts without seeing or hearing him, was an entirely different experience.

 _Sorry,_ she wrote down hurriedly, _please disregard that! It was truly silly of me to say._

She waited a few more minutes, and still nothing appeared. She bit her lip. Maybe he got mad? Maybe she interrupted him when he wanted to write something meaningful and smart and not silly at all, like she just did, and she just went and ruined it. She'd be mad, too. "Oh, Bernie, what did you do..." she sighed to herself. 

But then he was writing again, and it would be a lie to say that she didn't hang onto every letter. 

" _There is no need for apologies, not when you've given me my first laugh of the day,_ " she read out loud. Oh, she'd made him laugh! She laughed herself, imagining his brief, deep, dark chuckle in her mind. The one that used to terrify her but she missed so dearly, right now. 

He continued writing, _But please do accept my apologies. I would greatly enjoy continuing this for as long as you are able to._

Bernie took a moment to survey the page so far - they hadn't filled half of it yet! Maybe they could afford to fill it up some more. 

She set her travel pack aside and got comfortable, lying on her belly to write right on the bed. She'd worry about running out of space tomorrow, or maybe the next day. For this first day at least, she just wanted to keep on writing until they ran out of things to say.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I still don't have a posting schedule, so updates will be sporadic! More to come, hopefully, though there really isn't an overarching plot here, other than "Hubert and Bernadetta are clumsily navigating magical text messaging"


	3. Chapter 3

"You are lost in thought."

Hubert startled. It wasn't often that someone would make that comment of him. He had trained himself to have eyes and ears trained on everything, at once, without sacrificing attention on who he was speaking to. Especially Edelgard.

But she was right; of course she was. And so there was no need to make excuses. He bowed his head in quick apology. "... My apologies, Lady Edelgard. I did not mean to drift off."

Edelgard looked at him oddly. He would almost call her expression fond, if that thought alone didn't have him want to fidget in embarrassment. "It's no matter. I suppose that any court gossip I have to relay, you have already heard twice over, and fact-checked at that." She set her teacup down. "Now, what has you so preoccupied?"

"Nothing of import," he began, but she was quick to head him off with a shake of her head.

"It must be, for you to drift off like that." Her eyes took a knowing glint, like she'd determined a secret that he'd kept from her. "Or is Bernadetta now 'nothing of import'?"

There it was, the not-secret she'd cleverly gleaned from his momentary lapse in attention. He shifted his gaze from her teasing eyes down to his half-full cup.

"She is, of course, but the matter is... minor," he tried, bringing his own cup up for a sip. It had cooled.

Edelgard was still smiling, but she was at least trying not to keep looking at him with those teasing eyes. "You know, it _is_ fine to admit you miss your wife while having tea with me." She took a pair of tongs and picked up a plain roll from the bread basket between them, transferring it to his plate. "This is a social call between dear friends, not an official report."

Finally, Hubert let himself smile. He ate less when Bernadetta was not around, and Edelgard had been recruited to help remind him whenever he was in the capital. "It truly is a minor concern, Lady Edelgard, " he sighed, glad to busy his eyes and hands with something tangible, "But if you truly must know, I was thinking on our last exchange."

Edelgard's brows rose in sincere interest. "By letter? Or by journal?"

"The latter," he confirmed, quieter than he'd intended. Edelgard was one of the few who knew of the journals he'd crafted; he had shown her roughly how they worked with the first pair he'd made. He and Bernadetta were on their second pair now, and so far they'd run into few problems with them. Soon he would pass the method along to the Vestra mages, but he was still perfecting some aspects of its production. Presently they were used solely for some very personal notes between him and his wife while she was away.

Which Edelgard knew, of course. She had a hand to the corner of her lips, trying valiantly to suppress the wide, pleased smile. Hubert truly enjoyed seeing her so happy, but for it to be at his expense, well, it made him want to find an excuse to head back to his rooms.

"Well?" She prompted, as he'd gone silent again. "Go on. Or is it, ah, too personal of a message?"

"It's not the content," he muttered, feeling steadily more hesitant as he drew closer to the actual issue. "It has merely been... a few days, since we last wrote."

He took his time buttering a piece of the bread Edelgard had given him, not wanting to see the look on her face. How foolish he must sound, her vigilant right hand, working in the shadows... wondering why his wife hadn't written him a personal note as per her usual routine.

When he finally looked up, Edelgard was looking at him thoughtfully. "She hasn't written you?" He shook his head. "And you haven't tried to reach out to her yourself?"

Again, the buttered roll on his plate took his attention. He heard her sigh.

"Hubert." There was a click of her teacup landing firmly on its plate. "Are you saying that you wait for her to write you, before answering?"

Hubert couldn't say anything to that. Of course he waited for her to initiate their correspondence. It was that way even when they wrote letters the usual way, with Bernadetta sending her updates along with a specific location he could, maybe, send a reply to, if she would even stay in that area long enough. Sometimes he wouldn't even have a chance to send anything at all.

With the journals, they could write anything, whenever they wanted. Bernadetta had taken full advantage of it, writing a few lines every day that he would always respond to, even if it would be hours after she'd written. Sometimes a day or two would pass with nothing, if she was very busy. But never as long as a week, which was how long he'd been waiting this time.

He told Edelgard as much, finding it easier to explain everything once he started.

"I know she can look out for herself. And we have gone longer without hearing from each other. But I can't help but wonder..."

"It does seem worrying," Edelgard said, finally, as he finished up his roll. "Bernie herself tells me she now makes it a point to write something every day. At one point I think she even worried that she wrote too much. That perhaps she was bothering you."

Hubert frowned. That had been a concern she brought up before, early on in their use of the journals. "Impossible. We discussed that from the beginning, and she knows that she could never..."

"I'm sure she knows, but sometimes one can't help but wonder." Edelgard crossed her arms. "Especially if she initiates all your exchanges."

Hubert felt the sting in her words. "... I did try," he said, "... once, a few days ago, when I first noticed how many days had passed."

"But still nothing?"

"None yet." He shook his head. "I was simply thinking of what else I might write, when you caught me drifting off, earlier."

Edelgard hummed. "And what did you write the first time?"

"That I was leaving for Enbarr that morning."

She gave him a withering look. "Was that it?"

He'd also written that he'd be bringing the gladiolus pin with him to the capital, since he knew that she brought the matching one along with her, that he thought of her whenever he put it on, and that he hoped she was doing well. But Edelgard didn't need to know all of that.

"You need to be more personal!" she was saying, "Or at least leave a question for her to answer, an opening for her to respond to."

They spent the rest of their casual, no-work-allowed tea time discussing other notes he could be writing to her. Hubert knew some of those would indeed be useful, maybe, especially if he would take Edelgard's advice of initiating, more often. But truthfully, he knew Bernadetta did not need a large opening to talk, let alone write, about what was on her mind. At least, not with him. He was always happy to listen to her thoughts. He knew she would be more than happy to return the favor, if he could only conquer that gnawing awkwardness of putting his feelings into words.

That evening, as he retired to his room and prepared for bed, he heard the tell-tale buzz of magic coming from the journal at his bedside table.

He wasn't sure when he'd last moved that fast, but almost immediately he was at his bed, the trembling book open on his lap. He hadn't even thought to light a proper lamp, content to read by the light of the moon.

Her notes appeared one after another, several sets of lines, filling up one page, then the one next to it.

Hubert took several moments to scan through them quickly, mind working quickly to piece together what was happening. The first notes were as usual, including an update where she would be going next, but the latter ones contained the same thoughts that he'd been wondering all week: _Where are you? How are you doing? It's okay, if you're busy. I miss you._

He had a quill pen in hand before he knew it.

_I am here, Bernadetta._

It took several moments of bated breath, but soon enough, fresh words were appearing in rapid succession, right below his own writing. _Hubert! ~~I was wondering~~ ~~I thought~~ ~~I hope you~~ I missed you! Have you been very busy? Are you in-_

He typically waited for a lull in her writing before responding, but this time he couldn't resist. _I missed you, too._ He thought for a minute, tapping the quill against his lips as he scanned the spread of her notes once more. She mentioned a hike into a remote rainforest for a particular plant... _It seems we found a limit to the journal's reach._

He paused. _I was worried, but I am glad to know you are doing well, Bernadetta._

 _I was so worried too! I'm so happy to hear from you again. ~~I wondered what happened, since~~ Do you think something happened with the journal's magic?_

He hadn't even thought of that possibility, since they'd had longer distances between them before. _Perhaps. You mentioned a hike,_ he drew a thick line under the section he was referring to, _perhaps something in this forest disrupted the spells_.

_Oh, that makes sense. The people here did say it was a special sort of rainforest, and it was thrumming with magic I didn't recognize. I wish you were with me, you'd probably know more. But I took notes, and I'll let you know more when I get back in a proper report._

_But it was beautiful, Hubert! Kind of hard to get to, and it was dark, and a little scary, before I got deep enough to see all the plants that lit up in the dark..._

Hubert sat back to watch her words, lovingly crafted, beautifully descriptive, come into being on-page. His heart was beating perhaps a little too quickly, and it took him a moment to realize that he was smiling down at the journal like a fool. 

_But, I actually need to get going. I felt the journal in my pack when you wrote just now, and I may have dropped everything to write back._

Did she stop in the middle of a trail to write him? Oh, Bernadetta... 

_That's fine. Please get yourself to a safe place, Bernadetta._ He paused; it was early yet and he was too keyed up from all this to go to bed now. _If you don't mind, I may continue writing. Nothing quite as exciting as your hike, I'm afraid, but._ But it would be something for her to look forward to reading. Maybe. 

_Please do!_ she responded, just a hasty scribble. _I'll read it all once I find a good place to set up camp later._

_I really missed you, Hubert._

_I missed you, as well. Please take care._

She didn't respond; perhaps she was getting her things back together, to continue her trek back to the nearest town.

There was nothing for him to respond to now. But he did have more he wished to say. 

Hubert got up. He headed to his desk, lit a lamp, and got more ink for his pen. It would be a long night, and if he was lucky she would return to write back with him if he stayed up long enough. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aka, "what if they thought they were seen-zoned but really there was no signal!!" RIP.

**Author's Note:**

> tentatively marked as multi-chapter, because I might add to this (an "epistolary" fic?), but I make no promises haha


End file.
